Lac-Mégantic's appeal to tourists: Don't abandon us now

Susan Semenak, The Gazette06.04.2014

Auberge Majella owners Janique Fredette, left, and Pierre Champagne, right, pose for a photograph in front of their inn in the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Several tourists have cancelled reservations in their inn but emergency crew workers working at the site of the explosion in Lac-Mégantic were quick to pick up the extra rooms.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

Auberge Majella owners Janique Fredette, left, and Pierre Champagne, right, arrange chairs in their garden at their inn in the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Several tourists have cancelled reservations in their inn but emergency crew workers working at the site of the explosion in Lac-Mégantic were quick to pick up the extra rooms.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

A view of the garden of the Auberge Majella overlooking Mégantic lake in the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Several tourists have cancelled reservations in their inn but emergency crew workers working at the site of the explosion in Lac-Mégantic were quick to pick up the extra rooms.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

Astronomy tour guide Nicolas Ploix, right, speaks to tourists as the sun sets over the observatory at the Mont-Mégantic National Park near Notre-Dame-des-Bois, 77 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Tuesday, July 16, 2013.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

Astronomy tour guide Nicolas Ploix, centre, speaks to tourists as the sun sets over the observatory at the Mont-Mégantic National Park near Notre-Dame-des-Bois, 77 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Tuesday, July 16, 2013.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

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Children splash through the water, squealing as they run from the sandy beach to a grassy bank, where families have laid out lunchtime picnics on the hottest day of summer.

Impossible to believe that just behind the bushes and beyond a tall black fence unfolds a scene of hellish misery.

Adjacent to Lac-Mégantic's pretty municipal beach, its downtown lies in ruins - a burned-out shell of a charming lakeside town that would be buzzing with summer visitors if an unmanned train hadn't derailed and exploded right in the heart of it on July 6. As of Friday, the bodies of 47 victims had been recovered, out of the approximately 50 people who are believed to have perished.

The town is overrun with emergency workers and media crews whose daily dispatches paint a grim picture. Despite the heartbreaking loss, Lac-Mégantic residents are trying to move forward. But they worry that the tourists they rely on so much during this peak summer season have been frightened away.

At Auberge Majella, on the outskirts of town, the gardens surrounding the charming five-room inn owned by Janique Fredette and her husband, Pierre Champagne, are abloom. A hot tub under a grapevinecovered pergola awaits the languorous. A perfectly manicured lawn rolls toward the sandy beach at Baie des Sables.

Last week, the rooms in this four-star inn were filled up with emergency workers. But what will happen once they check out? "July and August are our big months. In a good year we will be 100 per cent full. But this season there are bare spots in the calendar, and we are trying to keep our heads above water," lamented Fredette, whose husband's family bought the property 80 years ago.

"We are hardy, hard-working and resourceful people here. But for small businesses like ours, if summer business isn't good, things will be very tough come winter."

Fredette, who lost three cousins in the explosion, said she has been heartened by phone calls from former visitors from as far away as Australia checking to see whether they are okay. Some have made reservations for this summer "as a show of solidarity." A couple from Princeville, two hours away, hopped in the car and drove over just to give them a hug.

There are a number of large industrial employers in the region. But Fredette said many locals rely on small, tourism-related businesses like hers for their livelihood.

"If there's nobody at the campground or the provincial park, the students who work there will be sent home. If the restaurant doesn't have enough diners, a waitress gets laid off," she said. "We really need tourists to keep coming. Now more than ever."

In the wake of the catastrophe, anxious tourists fled the area and many have cancelled bookings. Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche has publicly pleaded for them to return so as to spare the local economy a further blow.

Over on Laval St., a few blocks from the disaster's epicentre, the owner of Pizzeria Mégantic is watching yet another television clip featuring graphic aerial footage of the wreckage down the street and feeling mounting bitterness toward news crews.

"Yes, we lost the nerve centre of our town. People were killed and we are mourning the dead. But the whole place has not been razed as these sensational reports would have you believe," says Dadoune Afid as he sits in his empty restaurant, waving at the television screen overhead.

"If you come here you will see people out and about.

People riding their bikes and swimming at the beach, enjoying the scenery. You will find a place of exceptional beauty."

A donation to the Red Cross isn't the only way to help Lac-Mégantic, Afid suggested. Hop in the car and head over. Stay in an auberge or at a campground in a nearby village. Stop by for a meal at one of the 10 restaurants in town that are not inside the disaster zone. Have a slice of his Mégantic special - an all-dressed pizza with mushrooms, green pepper, grilled chicken and meat sauce.

The blast affected a 1.4-square-kilometre area in downtown Lac-Mégantic, but the whole region is suffering the consequences, restaurateurs and innkeepers say, even though its breathtaking natural landscapes, sleepy villages and heritage architecture remain completely untouched by the disaster.

In this "faraway place" 250 kilometres east of Montreal, where villages are spread apart, divided by hilly roads and endless fields and forests, the people who rely on tourism for their living fear that they have been abandoned.

Le Magasin General is a quirky bakery-dinerantique store-guest house in an exquisitely restored Second Empire-style building in Notre-Dame-des-Bois, a picturesque hamlet a half-hour's drive from Lac-Mégantic. There's not a soul in sight on a sunny weekday morning, except for the owners, Michel Pilon and Lucie Vincent, who pop up from their breakfast on the balcony at the sound of a car door slamming.

The tarts and squares in the fridge haven't been moving very fast since the name Lac-Mégantic started being mentioned on the news alongside terms like "runaway train" and "Red Zone," so they have cut down on their baking.

"This region was already off the beaten path. Now we are known for all the wrong reasons," Pilon said. "We will die if people stop coming."

Marie-Georges Bélanger, who is in charge of customer service at Mont Mégantic provincial park, says she understands the discomfort travellers feel about coming to a disaster zone.

"They don't want to vacation amid devastation, where they will feel guilty or awkward. Nobody does," she said. "If only we could make them realize that there is so much to see and do in this immense region with its breathtaking scenery. So much that is completely untouched by the sadness."

Bélanger says the reasons to come are not just economic. People in the region are by nature friendly and open and it does locals good to see new faces, to feel less isolated, she says.

"Our lives have been turned upside down. We have all lost brothers or sisters or cousins or neighbours. But we want to begin to go back to normal life, to resume work and be part of the world again. It is part of the healing process" Well-wishers are welcome, but gawkers are less kindly received. At Ste-Agnès Church, which sits on a hill overlooking the disaster zone, a steady stream of outsiders gathers to get a closer look. Some stand on their tiptoe peering through binoculars over the security fence erected by police around the so-called Yellow Zone and into the rubble.

"People have been very kind to us and we appreciate it," says Pierrette Bolduc, a retired teacher who is volunteering at a tribute to the victims that has been set up in front of the church's altar. "But some people can be insensitive."

Richard Foret and his wife, Claire, retirees from Montreal, are the kind of visitors locals are happy to see. Last week, they cancelled their planned trip to Gaspé, got on their Goldwing motorcycle and drove to Lac-Mégantic.

"We figured they need our money more over here," they said at the breakfast table of Auberge aux Toits Rouges, a cozy retreat in Notre-Damedes-Bois, their base for a week of stargazing and touring.

"Everywhere we go, people are so glad to see us. They thank us for having come and sometimes in the middle of a conversation they might start to tell a story of fleeing the fire in their pyjamas or searching for a friend. Other times, though, they just want to talk about something else."

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